On Oct. 2, 2006, the Amish were catapulted into the national spotlight when a non-Amish man entered a one-room schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Penn., and shot 10 young female students, killing five.
People had heard about the Amish before, of course. Many had seen "Witness," read about the Wisconsin v. Yoder Supreme Court case or watched "Devil’s Playground." But the Nickel Mines shooting offered outsiders one single event to latch on to, to study, dissect and report on what would come to define the Amish.
It wasn’t the event itself that helped define them, but what happened just hours after the shooting took place when an Amish man walked into the nearby home of the shooters’ parents and said, “We will forgive you.”
The non-Amish world was dumbfounded. Some saw it as a meaningless gesture -- an offering of words that the Amish surely couldn’t yet comprehend or truly believe.
People had heard about the Amish before, of course. Many had seen "Witness," read about the Wisconsin v. Yoder Supreme Court case or watched "Devil’s Playground." But the Nickel Mines shooting offered outsiders one single event to latch on to, to study, dissect and report on what would come to define the Amish.
It wasn’t the event itself that helped define them, but what happened just hours after the shooting took place when an Amish man walked into the nearby home of the shooters’ parents and said, “We will forgive you.”
The non-Amish world was dumbfounded. Some saw it as a meaningless gesture -- an offering of words that the Amish surely couldn’t yet comprehend or truly believe.
- 2/28/2012
- by Josh Fleet
- Aol TV.
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